The Price of Power
by deadheadwookie27
Summary: It was the Book. It all led back to the Book. It wasn't right, wasn't natural, wasn't... safe. (This is just an idea I'm playing around with and hopefully it all works out. So let me know what you think of it.)


_12 October 1997_

_Not often is it that I am frightened. But there is something about this book, with which I cannot part for some unfathomable reason, that fills me with an uneasiness and fear that I have yet to feel in all my seventeen years. With some regret I cannot simply stop reading the book. Sometimes I seem to read it in my sleep, for when I awake in the morning, my head is full of new information and the outlines and receding images of old script and text that fade as I come back to reality. I wish I had never found this accursed thing—but yet, it fills me with something that I cannot describe. There is obsession within me that makes it impossible to concentrate on meaningless tasks such as brushing my teeth or homework. I'd rather have my nose shoved into this book. But it seems to be, as I go on and delve further into the fray, that it is more of a journal than a book. There are narrative elements to it, that much is for certain, but there appears to be more and more personal anecdotes. By whom? I do not know. But the sheer information in this book alone is marvelous. Some good, some odd, but most of it is… dare I say, dark. I can't describe in words of my own the amount of darkness this tome holds; I would need to copy it verbatim. Perhaps I will at some point, but at the moment I do not risk it being found. The book itself is always within arm's reach and it only opens at my will. But this personal journal of mine is not as well guarded. I am trying to be as vague as possible, so all of this text will be scrambled into intangible script. It will be a code of sorts, one that is not easily deciphered. For me it will read normally, but for others it will be ramblings of Quidditch and normalcy, but there is always the possibility that someone may find a way to translate it. By spell or by rune. I cannot take the chance. So I leave it at that for this moment, perhaps I shall write more tomorrow, perhaps I shall wait longer. I do not know. All that is certain is that I am afraid of this book and what it is doing to me. But I cannot stop. Not yet. I must know more._

_H.P._

1

It was raining when he awoke near three in the morning. Something was calling to him, something on the air, a whisper in his ear that tickled like a lover's breath. What it said he could not tell, but it seemed to grow louder, as if pulsing in his head. He could hear his heart beating and pumping blood through his veins,

_thrum_

_thrum_

_thrum_

it was maddening.

Harry made his way towards the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror. Over the past month his complexion had lightened, becoming pale and almost sickly. There were bags beneath his eyes, dark and loping like black crescent moons. His eyes were bloodshot and the eyelids drooped as if they weighed more than a hundred pounds.

Lightning flashed and he waited for the thunder. But in that flash he saw something that almost made him gasp. He grabbed a candle and brought it close so he could see better, and then he did gasp. There it was, at the bottom of his hair line: a sickening creep of grey making its way up black strands of hair, like weeds climbing a building's foundation. He was seventeen years old and he already had grey in his hair.

Thunder finally boomed. It was far off still, but powerful, the storm was slowly approaching. And, as he placed the candle back upon the wall, he heard the whisper again. It was sweet, like how a mother coos her baby. It made him feel warm inside and took away the weariness he felt. It took away the hunger in his stomach and in his mind. It took away all thoughts of the book that was hidden beneath his pillow.

The whisper seemed to call to him, like a Siren's song. He put words to the melodic tendrils of soft sound that only he could hear.

_Come little child_

_And let us see_

_Let me hold you_

_And rock you free_

_I'll be your lover_

_I'll be your friend_

_I'll love you until the very end_

Were those his words or were they the words of the voice? He didn't care. It was calling to him with open arms and he needed to be hugged.

Harry tugged on a cloak and slipped on his trainers. He slipped out of the Head Boy's dormitory and walked into the common room where the embers of a once roaring fire were pitifully dying. He went out the painting and into the hall.

_Where? Where was it coming from?_

_Over here, Harry. Right this way sweetheart. _

It pulled at his heart strings. It tugged at his belly, almost physically dragging him towards the stairs.

As he lumbered through the hall another splash of lightning lit the corridor, shadows falling across the floor like puppet masters and their toys. They seemed to move, jumping and playing with each other in games that only shadows know.

He thought back to the book for a moment.

_Shadows are but a part of life and even they have minds of their own. Heed this warning for crafty they are. The shadow has no sound and has no voice but it can easily strangle the life out of you when you're not looking._

After he thought of it, the shadows seemed to stop playing and seemed to be watching him. Waiting. Trailing his own with the stealth of assassins. He fastened his pace.

The book. The book. The _book._ He would never be able to escape its hold over him. He felt himself slipping off into the River Styx, barely holding on as the souls that were washed away grabbed at his ankles, moaning and screaming. Sometimes he could claw his way a little further inland, his nails breaking on the shale and stone and other times the stone turned to sand and he slipped closer towards the flowing river of blood and souls.

He found himself at the stair case. Thunder rumbled in the distance yet again. But how long had he been thinking? Did he miss another flash of lightning? Was the storm closer or farther away? The windows shook and some of the paintings awoke. That answered his question.

The whisper had turned into something more now. Something almost tangible. It turned into… music? But it was louder now, almost as loud as his blood had been, pumping through his brain like a railroad train, the whistle screeching as the breaks squealed to a halt.

And something did pull him this time. It pulled him in the right direction. Before he knew it, he was there.

2

The music was coming from behind the door. The tinny sound of old instruments and voices warbled through the air in an off kilter rhythm. It was amazing how loud it had been from where he'd first heard it compared to how soft it was now, only resting behind the door in the Room of Requirements. Slowly he turned the handle and pushed through.

The smell of vanilla ran in little tendrils across his nose. Candlelight bathed the room in a mellow glow and the air was warm and inviting. It was a large, modest room. A fire cracked and spat embers far off to the side. Above the mantle sat pictures, pictures he'd never seen before. The music was comforting, all tenseness left his body and he walked towards the fireplace.

He moved towards the first picture, pulled it from the frame, and looked at it. It was a family photo. _His_ family to be exact. There they were, him as a child and his parents… no, not him as a child. Him as a man. It was as if they had taken the picture five minutes previous. Harry was smiling away with each arm draped around one parent. His mom was laughing and kissing his cheek, his dad grinning from ear to ear, ruffling his hair, all of them having a grand old time. This moment had never happened. It would never happen.

A tear drop splattered on picture Harry. All the faces were blurred and watery, all melding into one giant moving splotch. He felt a sob rising in his chest, felt it ride its way to the top of the coaster and set off down the track again as he let it out of the tunnel. Then came another. And then another. And another. His shoulders began to rise and fall. He choked for breath and stumbled into one of the chairs beside the fire. He gripped the photo so tight that the ends creased and his hands shook with blind agony.

The record hissed and screeched to a stop, making him look up. The record player had stopped on its own accord. Harry stood and crossed the room slowly, the picture still firmly in his grasp. There was a pop and a slow, soft hiss as the record began to spin once more.

The song had changed. It was more of a brass band, more explosive than the last song. It had power and feeling in it. He closed his eyes and smiled involuntarily. The crescendo fell softly, never losing that magical power that only music can hold over people, as a woman began to sing.

_We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day._

"Hey there handsome."

Harry jumped in the air, losing the picture in the process. He felt small, warm arms encircle him from behind. A nose nuzzled his neck, his flesh bubbling under the sensual contact. The hair on his arms stood and his bones felt like rubber.

He fought to break the contact but the arms held fast. "Ah, ah, ah. You didn't say the magic word."

He knew that voice. But…

"Hermione?"

There was hot breath on the back of his neck and a shudder ran through his body. Lips moved right next to his ear. "Right-o, daddy-o."

"What are you doing? Let go of me."

"Aw, what's wrong? Harry doesn't want to play?"

"What's wrong with you?" He finally wiggled free from her grasp and looked at her.

Hermione stood there in her robes, a slack, seductive smile gently grasping at her lips. Her eyes were heavy and saturated with want. She crossed her arms.

"There's nothing wrong with me, Harry. What's wrong with you?"

_Won't you please say hello, to all the folks that I know. Tell them it won't be long._

He looked at his trainers and felt like a child. He felt as he did back in primary school when someone had just thrown his brand spankin' new (as new as hand-me-down could be) army soldier in the dirt and then had pissed on it, laughing at him. "_You want your toy now, you baby!"_ Someone else howled and slapped their knee. "_Yeah! What are you, queer? Come on, queero! Come get your toy!_"

It was the stare he was under. It made him hot in the cheeks and turned his insides to worms. His hands shook with nerves and he saw the picture on the floor. He made a move towards it, but Hermione beat him to it.

"What's this we have here?"

"Hey! Give me that!" He tore it out of her hands and she puffed out her lips, pouting.

"Well you're no fun." She sauntered over to him and cupped his cheek. "Harry, you're acting funny. Are you feeling okay?"

_They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go, I was singin' this song._

Now that she had mentioned it he felt flushed in the face. Maybe it was the close contact she was giving him, something that she had never really done before (sure she had given him hugs or the occasional squeeze of the hand, but nothing really more than that). Something no girl had ever done before. A pain started behind his eyes and rolled its way back up into the top of his head, around the curve like an F1 racer and back down to where his spine met the bone known as his skull. There was a loud thrum in his ears. It was as if someone was blasting a trumpet right beside him. It was the music. It had become unbearably loud. He grabbed at his ears and backed away from her hand. He moaned in pain and collapsed onto the couch. He dropped the photo but he didn't notice. The sound! That horrible sound!

There was a muffled noise, as if he was hearing it through water. He opened his eyes and saw the room spinning, Hermione's face cutting into separate directions. He was going to be sick to his stomach. Hands grasped his cheeks.

"Harry!"

The air sucked out of him and all the noise stopped. The pain in his head went away all at once and the music was back down to its normal level, the woman still crooning over the band. He had forgotten to breathe and the air filling his lungs felt good.

She was smiling at him. Smirking. "There we go. All better, right?"

He nodded dully. She handed him back the picture without glancing at it and stepped back. She beckoned him with a finger. "I believe you owe me a dance, Mr. Potter."

Dance? What's a Dance? Was that a food? Or was that a kind of book?

Dance? Dance? A Dance? What? A? Dance?

Dance. She wanted to _dance_ with him. He felt stupid and silly. But for a moment he hadn't known what she was saying. He hadn't known what to make of her words. Everything had just flown in one ear and out the other, barely saying good morning let alone stopping for tea and toast.

Harry stood and took a few steps towards her before stopping.

"But… I don't know how to dance…"

_Come on, queero! Come get your toy!_

Hermione laughed gently and moved towards him, swaying her hips in small, tight patterns as if she were strutting down a runway for thousands of cameras to see and snap photos of. She took his hand and softly pulled him with her.

"I'm going to change into something more… comfortable. You stay right here. No peeking," she added with a wink.

He hadn't noticed the privacy curtain or the bed in the corner of the room. It was dark and barely visible in the soft glow of the fire. Hermione lit a candle and the curtain lit up, casting a shadow on the screen. He tried to avert his eyes as she stripped, her shadow showing off curves rarely seen from under the robe. He saw the outline of her breasts and felt a small stir in his stomach. A giggle almost rose from the bottom of his throat, but he swallowed it and turned.

The records stopped, yet again, before replaying the same song. That explosive intro and the descending tone until the woman started singing. He walked toward a small window and watched the rain throw itself at the windows. The globs of water screamed in frustration as their fruitless effort caused them nothing but failure.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around.

There was Hermione Granger, his best friend and the woman he loved, standing in nothing but long socks and a pair of panties. His eyes almost bulged from his head. She giggled, smiling without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

"Face it, Tiger. You just hit the jackpot."

His jaw went slack and he could do nothing but nod. She pulled his hand and led them to the center of the room. She hugged against him before huffing.

"Well, this won't do." She pulled off his shirt and he hissed and felt his back muscles contract at the foreign feeling of skin on skin contact. He could feel her hard nipples pressing into his chest and the smoothness of her body slide like silk sheets across his skin. "There. Much better."

She put his arms around her and she hugged his mid-rift and began to sway to the music. She nuzzled into his collarbone, her hair just as soft as her skin. Warm breath tickled at his own nipples and they perked out, just as hard as his partner's.

"See, this isn't so hard, now is it?"

Harry still hadn't found his voice.

She giggled again, not hiding her face like a shy little girl. No, she was a confident woman, one who radiated with power and control. She was a tigress and he was a deer.

"Harry?" She asked, not the slightest hint of fear or doubt within its grasp.

He looked down at her.

"I love you." She said.

And somehow, it didn't come as a shock. He could just feel it, even though all that was happening was incredibly foreign and new. He was uncomfortable, that was for sure. He had _never_ seen this side of Hermione. He hadn't even known this side existed. Never in his wildest dreams or most ambitious fantasies had this Hermione ever taken hold. She was the embodiment of Aphrodite with the courage of Athena and the quick and cunningness of Artemis. She was a goddess and he was trapped in her storm.

"I-" his voice had finally come trickling back, but had hitched in his throat. He'd never said what he was about to say, he'd never even given thought to saying it. There was never a moment in his life, where he'd ever had someone care so much about him that they would go so far as to what they were doing now.

"I-" it had always been a long hard climb for him to make any headway in the world. He fought tooth and nail just to stay alive, he'd made it through a war and had come out on top, but he had never pictured happiness. He had never pictured being with someone he… lo-

_Come on, queero! QUEERO QUEERO WHERE YA GOIN FUCK FACE YA FUCKIN QUEERO!_

"I love you too, Hermione_." _

She smiled and he let out a heavy sigh. The tiny voices were still screaming at him in the back of his head,

_Queero! Queero!_

But he had said something he'd been dying to say for a long time.

She slipped a slender hand around the back of his neck and spread her fingers through his hair. She was pulling him down towards her luscious, ruby lips, full and ripe for the picking. He licked his own and closed his eyes, his stomach grumbling in anticipation. And their lips met.

_Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds, far away._

A smell hit his nose. It burned and it was ungodly awful. Rotting, festering carrion assaulted him head on, as if someone were shoving a heaping pile of bloated road kill right in his face. He scrunched his nose and Hermione pulled at his lower lip with her teeth. But it wasn't lovingly or playful. It hurt. It _really _hurt. He tried backing away but she had a tight grip on him. He started to struggle but powerful hands held him close, a slimy tongue finding its way into his mouth. He could taste the rot on it. He gagged and flung out with a fist. He connected with her jaw and her teeth ripped part of his lip open as he stumbled backwards.

He wiped at it, his fingers coming away with a slippery coating of blood. He looked up to yell at her.

Her eyes. They were yellow and sunken, speckled black like a leopard's spots or like hot coals in a dying fire's light. But they weren't inviting. They were horrible. They were mesmerizingly terrible!

Her teeth poked out from a sharp, predatory smile in all directions. They were jaundice and rotten.

Her nose slumped at a hawk like angle. Her hair fell off in clumps, stringy and grey like that of an old hag. Her once perfect breasts fell away from her body like tube socks filled with sand, the strain stretching her nipples into awful colours and sizes. Her belly drooped and stopped falling near her calves, covered in sores and liverspots. It was stretching and cracked, discoloured and ripe. Tufts of greasy pubic hair poured from between her legs. The smell that emanated from it drove him back towards the fireplace.

_Don't know where, don't know when_-

"What's wrong, Harry?" Her voice was low and dangerous, disembodied. "I thought you said you loved me." She began to laugh, her breasts swinging back and forth like pendulums in a clock, her belly bouncing. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she shrieked, rushing him.

He screamed and fell on his backside. He scrambled backwards, keeping one arm outwards for protection.

Her tongue fell out of her head, a long, slimy and horrible black muscle, whipping from side to side. It lapped towards him like an excited dog from Hell.

He turned his head as she reached him!

His eyes were shut and the strong smell still lingered in the air, but, when he opened them, she was gone. There was nothing there now, only him, the fireplace and the record player. The picture was sitting next to him on the floor, torn and wrinkled.

Sobbing, he reached for it, and, when he looked, there was nothing but a blank, ruined sheet of paper.

_But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day_.

3

Dobby found him hours later, huddle in a ball against the couch, sobbing. He was in a right state and nothing the little elf said would snap him out of it.

"Does Harry Potter want Dobby to get his Miss Grangy?"

And suddenly the tears stopped. Harry stopped shaking and shivering. Instead he turned sunken and gaunt eyes towards Dobby and the elf back pedaled a few steps. There was something there behind the glaze, something deeply rooted in his brain, something… wrong.

"No."

The thrumming of his little heart was heard through the silence. Harry Potter had never scared Dobby before, but now he was a little more than frightened. Harry's gaze, it was the gaze of a lost soul, a dead man. A ghost.

"Harry Potter doesn't want his Grangy?"

"No." The words left his lips with a hiss, the kind one gave when hot water hit cold skin. He was staring into Dobby's spherical eyes. There was a connection, one that Dobby did not want, being made between the two of them. It wasn't a good feeling or a good thing. It was a bad thing, Dobby realized. A very bad thing had happened to Harry Potter and it had changed him.

But when Dobby lurched with a fearful sob, the darkness in Harry's eyes slipped away as if the match had been blown out. He blinked a few times and took off his glasses, wiping at his tear stricken face.

"I'm sorry Dobby. I… I don't know what came over me."

The elf took a tentative step forward and then retreated, searching for any sign of the Bad Harry Potter. But, as the wizard gave his longtime friend a small smile, the elf ran to him and wrapped as much of him in his arms that he could.

"Master Harry is back! The Bad Man is gone!" And with all the joy he could muster, Dobby laughed with glee and danced about.

But all wasn't as well as it seemed on the inside. There was something odd happening in Harry's head, something foreign and confusing. He had no energy left, no reason to smile. But he did just the same, to comfort Dobby, though he felt nothing from it. It was all a show,

_Come one come all for the performance of a lifetime! Watch as the elusive, doom and gloom, Harry James Potter tip toes around broken glass as something gnaws away at the inside of his head! It is surely a spectacle to be seen! But, be aware, ladies. It is not a pretty thing! It is grotesque! It is maddening! Hide the children and watch the boy descend into madness for the small price of- _

_QUEERO QUEERO COME GET YOUR TOY QUEERO_

"Master Harry?" The elf peered at him, his large, comical head was tilted and there was worry in his eyes. Worry that the Bad Man would be coming back. But Harry waved it off. He was okay… wasn't he?

"It's nothing, Dobby."

_QUEERO QUEERO_

"I just need to get some sleep is all. Can you take me back to my room, please?"

Dobby nodded and with a slight pop they were in his room in the Head Boy and Head Girl tower. Some heat seeped back into his legs yet his knees did not give up their constant ache.

"Thank you, Dobby. I'm okay now."

"If Master Harry Potter needs-"

"Anything, I'll call you straight away."

Dobby beamed at him and bowed slightly before disappearing on the spot.

That's when the shakes came back. It started with his hands and then his arms, tremors so violent that his fingers were a blur to his eyes. He stumbled and fell back onto his bed and trembled. The pit of his stomach grew heavy and cold and it was as if all the air in his lungs was being sucked out of him. His lungs struggled for more air than they could handle and it became a sharp, burning pain to breathe. He let out a wheeze and rocked back and forth. His torso began to shiver and he ran his sweating hands through his freezing hair. He was going to vomit.

Harry stood to run but tripped over his own feet, hitting the floor hard and slamming his head against the solid wood. There was a ringing in his ears, a thrum in his skull… _Thrum… Thrum…. THRUM…. __**THRUM.**_

He threw up all over the carpet and his face. The pain still continued, his stomach eating itself from the inside out, a nasty little creature with slimy skin and daggerish claws tearing its way through entrails and meat, pushing away the vines of his fleshy jungle, tearing its way out into the open.

_QUEERO QUEERO GONNA GETCHA FUCKFACE FAGGY QUEERO_

_Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. _

_Thrum. Thrum. Thrum._

The room grew dimmer as his eyes grew heavier. They stung from the vomit but he couldn't stop himself from slipping away. Subconsciously he rolled onto his side and let the vomit drain away so he wouldn't choke. But that was all he could do.

He was slipping off into sleep, shivering and covered in his own sick on the floor. He heard only one thing before he turned off from the world, just one thing over the constant _thrum_.

_But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day._


End file.
